25 Celebrity Women on Gender Inequality in Hollywood

From Emma Watson's inspiring HeForShe speech to Jennifer Lawrence's impassioned open letter, here's what some of the biggest female celebrities have to say about gender equality (or lack thereof) in the industry.

By
Erica Gonzales

Mar 8, 2017

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1) Viola Davis

"If a woman does the same job as a man, she should be paid the same amount of money. She just should. That's just the way the world should work. What are you telling your daughter when she grows up? 'You've got to just understand that you're a girl. You have a vagina, so that's not as valuable.' What are you telling her?'"

2) Brie Larson

"Men get custom suits or shirts made to fit, but as women, if you don't fit into that sample you bump up against an aspect of your career you can never blossom into.We'd all love to get out of this cycle of abuse where our mental weight is based on our body weight."

3) Danielle Brooks

"Our definition of female and male is starting to shift. I hope in the months to come that we really expand the definition of what it is to be female because there are a lot of people out there who identify in different ways. If we hit on some of that as well, it could be really cool storytelling and a lot of people will feel like they see themselves in even more characters."

4) Jessica Chastain

"We need more diversity. We're not telling the stories of many, we're telling the stories of few. There's a problem with the storytelling, with the protagonists...it's in front of the camera, it's behind the camera...This is not how we want to be working and we need to tell the stories of all."

"There's misinformation out there. Someone wrote an article once that I made a certain amount of money for The Martian. I made less than a quarter of that in reality. And so people are already saying, 'yeah, she's making less than her male co-stars because she's making this.' I made less than a quarter of that in reality. There is a huge wage gap in the industry."

5) Jennifer Lawrence

"I would be lying if I didn't say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn't want to seem 'difficult' or 'spoiled.' At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn't worry about being 'difficult' or 'spoiled.'"

"I'm over trying to find the 'adorable' way to state my opinion and still be likable! F*ck that. I don't think I've ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard. It's just heard."

7) Ava Duvernay

"As long as women make up only 20 percent of Congress, as long as senior movie studio execs are 93 percent male, and only four percent of studio films are directed by women; as long as the President of the United States, the VP, the Speaker of the House, the President Pro Tem, the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of Defense, are all men—you have to go seven layers down to find a woman, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, on the succession plan—then I'd say, Yes, we need 'women's media.' We need as many 'women in' gatherings that we can dream up."

8) Zoe Saldana

"I'm known for being selective in parts I either pick or pursue, and what matters most is that they be good female roles where the character isn't cardboard or objectified, and where there's real substance. No generic girlfriend or wife, and no sexy bombshell. Enough of that already!"

14) Natalie Portman

"I want every version of a woman and a man to be possible...The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you're making a 'feminist' story, the woman kicks ass and wins. That's not feminist; that's macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with."

15) Nicole Kidman

"Obviously we need to create more opportunities, it's not an even playing field...We also need to put cameras in little girls' hands and get them to tell stories and increase their confidence so that they can feel powerful."

17) Kathryn Bigelow

"I have always firmly believed that every director should be judged solely by their work, and not by their work based on their gender. Hollywood is supposedly a community of forward thinking and progressive people yet this horrific situation for women directors persists. Gender discrimination stigmatizes our entire industry. Change is essential. Gender neutral hiring is essential."

19) Rooney Mara

"To me, the thing that's more unfair than the pay is the terminology that's used to describe actresses who have a point of view, and want to have a voice in their life and their career, and what they choose to do. I've been called horrible things. If a man was acting in the same way that I was acting, it would just be considered normal. To me, that's the thing I find so frustrating is calling women spoiled brats and b*tches. We just want to have a voice in our life, and I don't think that's anything that shouldn't be encouraged in any human."

20) Patricia Arquette

"To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's equal rights. It's our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America."

—During her acceptance speech for Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 87th Academy Awards in 2015

21) Charlize Theron

"Girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way."

23) Oprah

24) Amy Poehler

"I have these meetings with really powerful men and they ask me all the time, 'Where are your kids? Are your kids here?' It's such a weird question. Never in a million years do I ask guys where their kids are. It would be comparable to me going to a guy, 'Do you feel like you see your kids enough?'"

25) Mindy Kaling

"If I make a decision, it'll still seem like it's up for debate. And I notice that a little bit at The Office, with, like, an actor: If I decided there'd be a certain way in the script, it would still seem open-ended, whereas, if I was a man I would not have seen that."

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